Redeeming the Broken Stars.

CHAPTER 11: THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING.

The situation would be funny if it weren't so horrifying.

He tried to sit up. Pain lanced through his torso, broken ribs from the beating, still healing. Or trying to heal, though without proper nutrition or medical care, the healing was going poorly.

Movement at the alley's entrance made Kaelen freeze.

A figure shuffled into view. Ancient, bent nearly double, leaning on a gnarled walking stick. 

A woman, though age, had eroded her gender into something more elemental. 

She wore rags that might once have been robes, layers of filthy cloth that could have been any color originally.

But it was her eyes that caught Kaelen's attention.

Completely white. Blind.

Yet somehow, impossibly, she turned her sightless gaze directly toward him with the precision of someone with perfect vision.

She smiled.

"Kaelen Ashwright," the old woman said, her voice surprisingly clear despite her appearance. 

"The Nine Heavens thought you dead. They were wrong…completely wrong.”

“Your dad, Soren Ashwright and those Elders think you are gone…”

“Well, they should think…again.” Her voice was a bit hoarse at the moment.

Kaelen's hand instinctively went to where his cultivation base should be, ready to defend himself.

The gesture was futile, he had no power to draw on, no techniques to deploy. He was as helpless as Zain had been when the debt collectors came.

"Who are you?" he demanded, trying to keep fear from his voice. "How do you know my name?"

The blind woman shuffled closer, her walking stick tapping against stone. When she smiled, her teeth were surprisingly intact, white and sharp.

"I am called Old Moth by those who remember to call me anything at all." She tilted her head, white eyes seeming to see through flesh and bone to the soul beneath. 

"As for how I know your name? I've been waiting for you, child. Waiting for a very long time."

"That's impossible. I just... I just arrived in this body. Hours ago, maybe? I don't even know what day it is."

"Four days you've been here, hovering between life and death, your soul fighting for purchase in dead flesh.”

Old Moth reached the wall where Kaelen sat and lowered herself beside him with surprising grace. 

"Your consciousness arrived the moment Zain's departed. But consciousness and control are different things. It took you this long to integrate enough to wake."

Kaelen studied her warily. Something about this woman felt wrong, but he couldn't identify what. 

She radiated no cultivation base that he could detect, not that his spiritual senses were particularly sharp in this crippled body. 

Yet there was a presence to her, a weight that had nothing to do with physical mass.

"You said you've been waiting for me. Why?"

"Because you're special, Kaelen Ashwright. You're the first Convergence bearer to survive the sacrifice in five thousand years."

The casual revelation hit Kaelen like a physical blow. "Five thousand years? Others tried?"

"Seven, to be precise." Old Moth's blind eyes somehow conveyed sadness.

"Most went mad from the consumption process, their minds fragmenting under the Devourers' hunger.”

“Two managed to cling to consciousness but couldn't find suitable vessels before dissipating. One found a vessel but was discovered by the Elders within days and eliminated."

She turned toward him, and Kaelen had the unsettling sensation of being truly seen despite her blindness.

"You're different. Your hatred kept you conscious when madness should have claimed you.”

“Your love kept you sane when you should have become a monster. And this body", she gestured at Zain's broken form, "is perfect. The shattered meridians mask your presence. The Devourers can't sense you. Yet."

"Yet," Kaelen repeated, latching onto the word. "What does that mean?"

"It means you have time. Not much, but some.”

“Time to grow strong again. Time to climb." Old Moth pulled something from within her rags, a small, leather-bound book, its pages yellowed with age. "Time to learn what was taken from you."

She pressed the book into his hands. Kaelen opened it, squinting at script that seemed to writhe across the page.

The language was archaic, predating even the classical texts Typhon had taught him, but somehow he could read it.

Essence Devouring: The Forbidden Path

Kaelen's breath caught. "This is..."

"A technique the Elders would execute you for possessing, yes." 

Old Moth's smile widened. "Normal cultivation absorbs spiritual energy from heaven and earth, refining it through the meridians into personal power.”

“But your meridians are shattered. That path is closed to you."

She tapped the book with one gnarled finger.

"Essence Devouring bypasses the meridians entirely. You don't cultivate spiritual energy.”

“You consume it. From other cultivators. From their very souls. Their lifetime of accumulated power becomes yours in moments."

Kaelen stared at the book, understanding dawning like a cold sun.

"This is demonic cultivation."

"This is survival," Old Moth corrected almost immediately, her eyes still completely white from her blindness.

“How does she even see?” Kaelen Ashwright muttered to himself.

"The Elders call it demonic because it threatens their monopoly on power.”

“But all cultivation is theft, child. Stealing energy from the universe to fuel personal advancement.”

“This technique is simply more honest about what it takes."

"And the cost?" Kaelen knew there had to be one. Power always demanded payment.

"Each time you consume another's essence, your soul shines brighter across dimensions.”

“The fragments of the Convergence Star within you will pulse, sending ripples through the fabric of reality."

Old Moth's voice grew serious. "The more you consume, the easier it becomes for the Devourers to find you. Eventually, they will sense you. And when they do..."

She didn't need to finish. Kaelen remembered the Devourers' hunger, their vast and terrible need.

"So I can grow strong, but only if I'm willing to eventually face the things that consumed me." 

Kaelen closed the book, his hands, Zain's hands, trembling slightly. "That's not much of a choice."

"It's the only choice you have.”

“Die slowly in this alley, weak and forgotten. Or climb fast enough that when the Devourers find you, you'll be strong enough to fight back."

Kaelen looked at the old woman, really looked at her. 

"Why are you helping me? What do you want?"

Old Moth's smile faded. For a moment, something ancient and terrible flickered behind her blind eyes, something vast and patient and utterly inhuman.

“Why am I helping you, Kaelen Ashwright?”

“Well, that is rather an unexpected question…wise but unexpected.”

“You should be more focused on mastering your new crippled body and trying to climb back to the highest realms to take revenge on your stupid father Soren Ashwright for murdering you!” Old Moth immediately said, her voice was a bit detached.

Kaelen Ashwright immediately stared at the old lady.

“My father wasn't…stupid, he was a bloody traitor.”

“He betrayed me alongside my mentor, and all traitors must…pay dearly.” Kaelen Ashwright's voice was cold and emotionless.